Grateful Dead announce additional shows with Trey Anastasio

It's not over till they say it's over. Fifty years after Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh first performed in Menlo Park, California, the surviving members of the Grateful Dead will reunite in 2015 for what they say is their final series of concerts. The four surviving members, Weir, Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, will play three shows at Chicago's Soldier Field, July 3, 4, and 5.

Grateful Dead audience in Eugene, OR on 6/13/93 (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - AUGUST 09: Musician Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead performs with The National at the Lands End Stage during day 1 of the 2013 Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival at Golden Gate Park on August 9, 2013 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

PT CHESTER, NY - SEPTEMBER 07: Bob Weir of Grateful Dead and Trey Anastasio of Phish perform at A Benefit for Headcount at The Capitol Theatre on September 7, 2012 in Pt Chester, New York. (Photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)

A man looks at a piece of artwork titled 'Skeleton and Roses' that was used to promote a 1966 concert by the band 'Grateful Dead' during a preview for an upcoming auction in Los Angeles on June 12, 2009. The work is part of the Bonhams and Butterfields' Entertainment Memorabilia auction that will take place in Hollywood on June 14 and includes pieces from Marilyn Monroe, Debbie Reynolds, the Jackson Five and others. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

New York, UNITED STATES: Medicine Man Bobby Henry of the Seminole Tribe of Florida stands next to a poster of the late Grateful Dead lead singer Jerry Garcia during a news conference at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square 07 December 2006 to announce that the Tribe bought the international restaurant chain, including its massive collection of rock 'n' roll memorabilia, in a 965 million USD deal with Rank Group. The Hard Rock Cafe first opened in London in 1971. AFP PHOTO Timothy A. CLARY (Photo credit should read TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

Grateful Dead in Portland, OR in 5/95 (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead in Seattle, WA on 5/26/95 (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc)

Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead in Oakland, CA on 2/26/95 (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc)

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - JUNE 17: Jerry Garcia, guitarist and vocalist for the Grateful Dead performs at First Avenue Nightclub in Minneapolis, Minnesota on June 17, 1988. (Photo by Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/GettyImages)

OAKLAND, CA - DECEMBER 31: Members of The Grateful Dead perform at the Oakland Colisem Arena on December 31, 1990 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

EUGENE, OR - JUNE 23: (EDITORS NOTE: Multiple exposure made in camera) Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead performs at Autzen Stadium on June 23, 1990 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

UNITED STATES - MARCH 17: Grateful Dead (Photo by The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

UNITED STATES - MARCH 17: Grateful Dead (Photo by The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

UNITED STATES - MARCH 07: Grateful Dead (Photo by The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

UNITED STATES - MARCH 07: Grateful Dead (Photo by The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

UNITED STATES - MARCH 07: Grateful Dead (Photo by The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

UNITED STATES - MARCH 07: Grateful Dead (Photo by The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

UNITED STATES - MARCH 07: Grateful Dead (Photo by The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO - JULY 24: Rock band 'Grateful Dead' & Bob Dylan perform on stage at Oakland County Stadium on July 24, 1987 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

BERKELEY, CA - AUGUST 17: Atmosphere as The Grateful Dead perform at the Greek Theater on August 17, 1987 in Berkeley, California. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO - JULY 24: Rock band 'Grateful Dead' & Bob Dylan perform on stage at Oakland County Stadium on July 24, 1987 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

BERKELEY, CA - AUGUST 14: Atmosphere as Grateful Dead perform at the Greek Theater on August 14, 1983 in Berkeley, California. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

BERKELEY, UNITED STATES - JULY 14: Bill Kreutzmann performing with the Grateful Dead At the Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA on July 14 1984 (Photo by Clayton Call/Redferns)

Grateful Dead Fans Are Alive and Rockin' Round Raceway
More than 125,000 rock fans-from down the road and across the nation-jam Englishtown's Raceway in Old Bridge, N. J., for concert featuring the Grateful Dead. Beer, booze and joints were the order of the day for the mellow, jovial crowd. Early arrivals lined up outside crowded liquor stores, while scalpers hawked $10 tickets for $20. Roads leading to the raceway were clogged for miles, a 15,000-car parking lot was filled four hours before the music started, the concert grounds were more mud than grass but Dead fans, who traveled from as far as New Mexico and California to hear their idol group, didn't seem to mind.
(Photo By: Harry Hamburg/NY Daily News via Getty Images)

More than 125,000 rock fans from down the road and across the nation jame Englishtown's Raceway in Old Bridge, N.J. for concert featuring the Grateful Dead. Beer, booze and joints were the order of the day for the mellow, jovial crowd. Early arrivals lined up outside crowded liquor stores, while scalpers hawked $10 tickets for $20. roads leading to the raceway were clogged for miles, a 15,000 car parking lot was filled four hours before the music started. the concert grounds were more mud than grass but Dead fans, who traveled from as far as New Mexico and California to hear their idol group, didn't seem to mind.(Photo By: Harry Hamburg/NY Daily News via Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO - SEPTEMBER 28: The Grateful Dead (L to R: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh) perform at a free concert in Lindley Meadow on September 28, 1975 in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California. (Photo by Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images)

This is the Greatful Dead Video of Touch of Grey. From their "In the Dark" Good video Quality

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When 210,000 tickets to the Grateful Dead's three-night Fare Thee Well run at Chicago's Soldier Field sold out in a snap, millions of hapless heads were up in arms. Billed as the final Dead shows, and featuring the original "core four" members with Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio﻿, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti alternating guest turns, the July 4 - 6 destination concerts were criticized for their cost and location even while being celebrated. And it turns out, the band was listening.

In a letter read on Sirius XM's Grateful Dead channel on the afternoon of April 10, Bob Weir,Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann announced two additional shows in Santa Clara, Calif. to precede Fare Thee Well.

As previously reported by Billboard, the additional shows will take place June 27 and 28 at Levi's stadium. The venue caps out at 65,000 seats per night, and the band wants those tickets to end up in the hands of fans, not secondary sellers.

"When you're shut out of tickets and your only option is inflated prices on secondary ticketing websites ... That would piss us off too," writes the core four. Referencing the elaborate letter-decorating initiative of the typical mail order campaign run by Grateful Dead Ticket Sales (GDTS), the band adds, "We were crushed to see how many of your beautifully designed envelopes did not get tickets."

Given the nature of Grateful Dead performances and the vast amount of material at the band's disposal, adding the Santa Clara shows will serve up fans a richer buffet of music, or "something a little more chunky," as Shapiro puts it. "Five shows by this band is a lot of music. These will probably be pretty long shows, and hopefully will provide a lot of great musical moments that people will be talking about for a long time. It was just the right thing to do to add these shows."

For the Santa Clara shows, an online lottery has been employed to fend off the scalpers, and the band does not tread lightly in taking those secondary sellers to task.

A West Coast play may take some of the bloom off the rose for Deadheads who bought into the concept that the Chicago shows, which take place 25 years after Garcia played his final show with the band in that same venue, were an exclusive event. But a return to California's Bay Area does provide a certain closure for a band that will be forever connected to that area.

Demand for those Chicago shows, set for Soldier Field where the Grateful Dead played their final shows 25 years ago, was off the charts, selling out in minutes at 210,000 with ticket requests in the millions. In confirming the Santa Clara shows, Shapiro says expanding the Fare Thee Well concept is an attempt to satisfy demand that far exceeded capacity. "After Chicago blew up, the band got to see first hand, and heard from friends and family, how many people were shut out from getting tickets for the Soldier Field shows," Shapiro says. "And it made sense that, if we're going to add a couple more, to go back to where it first began. The stadium is only 12 miles from where [The Grateful Dead] first met in Palo Alto 50 years ago [at DanaMorgan's Music Store]. So this final run by the Dead will begin where they first met, and end where they played their final show."

Read the letter in full below:

Dear Heads,

Although none of us knew it when we walked off the stage at Soldier Field on July 9, 1995, the Grateful Dead's long strange trip ended in Chicago that night. As you are aware, twenty years later, we're returning to Chicago to properly say Fare Thee Well.

But every good ending must start with a beginning. For us, it all began fifty years ago when we grabbed a bunch of instruments off the walls of a music store in Palo Alto California and began banging away on them in the back room, at night after the store had closed for the day.

Since we made the decision to go back to Chicago to say our final goodbye, it has become clear to us that we first need to return to our beginnings, where we first said hello - to each other and to all of you.

And so it is that we have decided to plug in for two additional shows on June 27 and 28 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California - just a dozen miles south of where Dana Morgan's Music Store once stood. At Levi's - as at Soldier Field - we will have the pleasure of being joined by Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti.

Ours wasn't just a long, strange trip - it was a VERY long, VERY strange trip. We weren't sure what it was going to be like to put a punctuation mark on the end of it. None of us anticipated the overwhelming outpouring of love and interest following our initial announcement of the shows at Soldier Field, and we were blown away by the response.

We have tried to do the right thing wherever we could for the Chicago shows by honoring the roots of where we came from, while dealing with the realities of the current times. But that's hardly comforting when you're shut out of tickets and your only option is inflated prices on secondary ticketing websites. That would piss us off too.

From the moment these shows were first talked about, we have been thinking about what we can do to honor the roots of our Deadhead experience, even in the face of changing technologies. (Remember: Ticketmaster didn't even go online until we got out of the game.) These shows were always intended as an expression of our gratitude, to both the music and the fans, so it's important that we get things as right as we can.

We have always been proud of our in-house mail order ticketing process, and the phenomenal way our fans have built a tradition out of turning a standard envelope into a frame-worthy piece of art. Some 60,000 mail order tickets were issued for the Soldier Field shows by the good folks at Grateful Dead Ticket Sales - yet we were still crushed to see how many of your beautifully designed envelopes did not get tickets.

For shows of this magnitude, it's impossible to eliminate every scalper. However, we offer you this: Working with our partners, we are using an online ticketing platform for the Levi's shows that will help ensure that the tickets for these shows will get into the right hands, the hands of our true fans. We believe that this process is the best way to give each of you an equal opportunity to obtain tickets at the most affordable possible prices. We are are proud to announce that 65,000 tickets per night will be available via the "online mail order" for the Levi's shows. For the nuts and bolts, go to Dead50.net.

We will not be adding any more Fare Thee Well shows. The three Chicago shows will still be our final stand. We decided to add these two Santa Clara shows to enable more of our fans to celebrate with us one more time. But this is it.

We love you guys more than words can tell, and hope to see you in the Bay Area or Chicago. If you can't make it to the shows, we are working on ways for you to still experience our Fare Thee Well, from wherever you might be. Stay tuned for those details.